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BPA and ISO Team on Wind by Staff BPA Journal, March 2006

BPA plans to integrate 2,000 megawatts of wind power by the end of 2008, and the agency may team up with the California Independent System Operator to develop new tools to manage this wind energy.

Since its creation in 1998, the California ISO has worked with large scale wind power. Wind development in California is expected to grow substantially in the next few years under a statewide Renewable Portfolio Standard, which mandated that 20 percent of all electrical energy come from renewable resources by 2010. BPA hopes to learn from the ISO experience to manage large scale wind in the Pacific Northwest.

The primary issue that BPA faces is the management of wind ramps within the hour due to the integration of large wind projects in small geographic areas (see below). The collaboration and possible cost sharing between BPA and Cal ISO will accelerate the development of new tools to manage wind.

New Meter Reads Wind 24/7

BPA installed an anemometer (a wind measurement device) atop a 150-foot tower Jan. 10 near Boardman, Ore. It will help predict within-the-hour wind ramps at Stateline, the largest wind project on BPA's grid. Ramps are large and sudden changes in wind energy that are difficult to predict.

The new anemometer, named Chinook, is part of an effort to forecast wind ramps. It is the latest addition to BPA's longterm wind monitoring program -- a collection of five anemometers in the mid-Columbia basin -- which started in the early 1980s.